BB&T opens Richardson branch, eyes Fort Worth

An East Coast bank is looking to bolster its presence in the Dallas-Fort Worth region and the rest of Texas, partly by adding locations and employees, and possibly through acquisitions.

Having unveiled a Houston location earlier this year, BB&T Corp. (NYSE: BBT) opened a Richardson branch this week, and plans to open one office apiece in Fort Worth and San Antonio, along with two in Austin, according to Kay St. John, Texas regional president of the Winston-Salem, N.C.-based institution.

The Austin branches should open in the first quarter of next year, while the Fort Worth and San Antonio locations will launch no later than the second quarter of 2012, she said.

That will bring BB&T’s Texas locations to 28, up from 22 when the bank established a physical presence in the Lone Star State with the acquisition of the deposits and branches of Birmingham, Ala.-based Colonial BancGroup Inc. The deal happened when Colonial failed in August 2009.

Along with the new branches will come hiring. Excluding various Texas subsidiaries, BB&T’s bank operations, which employs around 150 people statewide, will add around 20 people in the next 12 months, including lenders and people to manage new branches, St. John said. BB&T also has various subsidiaries that have over 800 employees in Texas, she said.

BB&T’s Texas corporate office next year will move into 28,000 square feet of space in the Trammell Crow Center at 2001 Ross Ave. in downtown Dallas, according to St. John.

In addition to taking up an entire floor of the 50-story building, BB&T will have a retail branch on the ground floor of the facility, she said.

“We’re excited about it,” she said. “That’s a done deal. The lease is signed.”

Since 2009, BB&T has seen its deposits in Texas grow 61 percent, to $1.3 billion, St. John said. “We never stopped lending money” during the downturn, she added.

Who’s a buyout candidate?

With around $159.3 billion in assets, the 139-year-old institution is the ninth-largest bank in the country, according to St. John and Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

“It’s a (well) run bank,” said Dan Bass, managing director-investment banking in the Houston office of FBR Capital Markets & Co. “They didn’t get into issues during the downturn. They have a lot of fee-based businesses that they bought over the years.”

BB&T likes to be a top five player in any market it operates in, Bass said.

It is currently the 52nd largest bank in Texas, which means there is plenty of room for it to grow here, he added.

“The problem is, to get to the top five in Texas, they’d like to do a multibillion-dollar acquisition,” Bass said. “There are not that many acquisition candidates” in the state.

In addition, many banks simply won’t sell at the moment, because the prices they might fetch in this environment aren’t high enough for their liking, according to Bass.

St. John said BB&T does not comment on “rumors or market speculation.”

“We will do what is in the best interest of our shareholders and, in the meantime, grow organically in Texas,” she said.